“What are you doing?” Nancy called over to him. “You’ll hurt yourself!”
“You think I’m going to jail?” Dennis countered. Sparks of challenge shot from his eyes. “You’ll have to catch me first.”
With that, he slipped the rest of the way over the edge of the roof and disappeared from sight.
15
Over the Edge
“No!” Nancy vaulted toward the spot where Dennis had gone over.
“What happened?” George’s breathless voice came from behind her. “Where’s Dennis?”
Nancy glanced over her shoulder just long enough to see George wade through the snowdrift toward Ned. Nancy slid to a stop inches from the edge, weaving back and forth to catch her balance. “He’s using the old fire escape!” she called.
Just below Nancy, Dennis’s black parka stood out against the snow-covered fire escape. He gripped the rusted metal railing, sending showers of snow into the air. The fire escape groaned and shook unsteadily with his every step. Nancy gasped when His boot actually broke through the brittle metal.
“Whoa!” Dennis caught himself. Clutching the railing, he pulled his boot up, then slipped, slid, and stumbled down the creaky iron stairs to the fourth-floor level.
“That thing’s a death trap!” Ned said, coming up beside Nancy.
But she was already lowering herself over the edge of the roof. “I’m going after him,” she said.
She dropped to the highest platform, doing her best to ignore the screech of metal as the fire escape pulled at the metal pins anchored in the crumbling bricks. “Dennis, stop!” she called.
His head jerked upward. “Not a chance,” he said.
He moved faster along the rusted metal strips that formed the fire escape floor. His steps made the fire escape shake even more unsteadily.
Nancy let out a frustrated groan as Dennis made his way down the rickety stairs to the third level. “I’ve got to catch up!” she muttered, clattering down the unsteady metal steps to the fourth level. He was just one floor below her now. But between the snow and the crumbling weak spots …
How can I catch up with him? her mind screamed. It didn’t seem possible.
“Unless …”
Nancy crouched down at the very edge of the fire escape. The iron there seemed fairly stable. If she was lucky, it would take the stress of what she was about to do.
She got her hands around the metal in as firm a grip as she could. Holding on tight, she shot her legs out into the air, letting her body fall so she swung below the fourth-floor level.
For one terrifying moment, her body swung outside the fire escape and there was nothing at all to break her fall.
Don’t slip, she begged silently. Please don’t slip.
“Nancy!” she heard George cry out. “What are you doing!”
Then Nancy swung back and saw the rusted iron of the fire escape below her again. Letting go, she dropped to the third-floor level of the fire escape. She landed right in front of Dennis with a thud that caused the whole fire escape to shudder and shriek.
“What—?” A look of total shock registered on Dennis’s face. But it disappeared a split-second later as Nancy’s left boot broke right through the fragile iron floor.
Even as she whirled off-balance, Nancy was determined not to let Dennis get away. She grabbed the front of his parka and managed to pull her boot out of the gaping hole. But as she did so, she pushed Dennis into the metal railing.
With an awful scraping sound the entire railing gave way behind him. Dennis began to fall backward, his face filled with panic. A huge wave of fear swept over Nancy as she felt herself being pulled along with him.
“Nooo!” she cried.
Bracing her feet, she angled her body away from the gaping hole in the railing. She pulled on Dennis’s parka with all she had. For a fraction of a second, she wasn’t sure she could do it. Then they both stumbled back against the wall of the building.
“Everyone all right?” Ned’s worried voice called down.
It took Nancy a moment to realize that she and Dennis were both unharmed. Dennis was crouched next to her, his hands on his knees.
“Fine,” she called, then turned back to Dennis.
His dark eyes flew from the gaping hole in the railing, to the rusted iron strips of the rest of the fire escape. Nancy got the feeling he was still gauging his chances of getting away.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “Randy’s called the police. They’ll be here any minute. It’s over, Dennis.”
He shot one last desperate glimpse downward, then sagged heavily against the brick wall. “Okay Okay.”
Nancy gulped as the fire escape shifted with a creaky groan. “Let’s get off this thing,” she said.
She gestured for Dennis to go ahead of her. As he started to move, Nancy thought back over all that had happened in the last two days. There were still some blanks, but if she played her cards right, maybe she could get Dennis to fill them in for her.
“You’ve been blackmailing Mr. Lorenzo since early October?” she asked, stepping carefully around the hole where her boot had broken through the metal. Seeing the surprised look he shot at her, she explained, “I saw the note you left him, telling him that your price was going up to fifteen hundred dollars. And his ledger showed unexplained payments made every fourteen days. It didn’t take a genius to put the two together.”
Dennis glowered. “I deserved that money, after what Pops did to my brother,” he said.
“Ty Brubaker?” Nancy guessed, remembering the photograph she’d seen in his room.
